Learning a language is more than memorizing vocabulary and grammar. It can also change how you think.

By: Sabrina Cohen
Course: Language and Thought (Ling 7800)
Advisor: Prof. Bhuvana Narasimhan
LURA 2020

When I was learning Spanish, the use of subjunctive verbs to convey modality captivated me. In linguistics, “modality” refers to the speaker’s attitude towards the proposition he/she is conveying. In Spanish, verbs can be in the indicative mood—what we mostly use in English, which reflects what we believe to correspond to reality—or in the subjunctive mood, which is used to express hopes, emotions, and whatever is not really happening in the world. By using the subjunctive, the Spanish speaker emphasizes the fact that he/she does not believe in the reality of what is being conveyed, a grammatical nuance that is rare in English in this context. When Spanish speakers talk about their beliefs, they use contrasts between the indicative and the subjunctive for affirmative and negative statements, respectively, whereas English speakers use the indicative in both cases. For example, for affirmative sentences, the equivalent of saying “I think that is (indicative) true” in Spanish is Creo que es (indicative) verdad. For negative sentences, the equivalent of saying “I don’t think that is (indicative) true” in Spanish is No creo que sea (subjunctive) verdad.

In my LING 7800 class last semester with Prof. Narasimhan, we discussed the effect of language on thought, even when language is not being used, a concept called “linguistic relativity.” The idea is that every language has different patterns of linking form and meaning. Therefore, speakers of different languages may think differently because speakers need to attend to language-specific lexical and grammatical distinctions present in their languages. For example, in English, “blue” is considered one color, but in Russian, “light blue” and “dark blue” correspond to different color words. Studies have been carried out to see if Russian speakers are able to more quickly distinguish between light blue and dark blue than English speakers, since the former have to habitually pay attention to this distinction in their day-to-day conversations. We also discussed the effects of linguistic relativity in bilinguals and how bilingual speakers’ thought compares to that of monolingual speakers of their languages. 

I wondered if the themes in linguistic relativity could be extended to the Spanish subjunctive/indicative contrast. Would having to make this distinction cause Spanish speakers to better remember false beliefs than English speakers? Would Spanish-English bilinguals better remember false beliefs if they had more experience speaking Spanish compared to English? 

To investigate this question, I developed a proposal for a series of experiments with Spanish-English bilinguals, English monolinguals, and Spanish monolinguals. I designed an experimental procedure, a way to assess relative proficiency in Spanish and English in bilingual speakers, and outlined possible quantitative patterns in the data if my hypothesis was (in)valid or partly supported. In the experiments, each group of participants would be shown a series of images. In each image, there would be a boy and a girl. The boy would make a statement (e.g., I think it’s going to rain today) and the girl would either deny or affirm this statement (e.g., I (don’t) think that’s true). After seeing the images, the participants would participate in a memory task in which they would have to recall what the girl said.

My prediction was that having to make the subjunctive/indicative contrast would allow Spanish monolinguals to be able to remember whether beliefs were affirmative or negative much better than English monolinguals. Further, I hypothesized that, in my Spanish-English bilingual group, the more years of experience speaking Spanish the participants had compared to speaking English, the better they would remember whether sentences were affirmative or negative in Spanish compared to English.

If this experiment were to be carried out, I would be really intrigued to see if English and Spanish monolinguals and bilinguals perform differently in a nonlinguistic task assessing memory for affirmative or negative beliefs. If so, this hints at a possible linguistic relativity effect, although the role of other factors (e.g., culture or geography) cannot be ruled out.  Linguistic relativity, a seemingly small principle (“language affects thought”), could have far-reaching implications. The next time you consider learning a new language, keep in mind that it is not just a matter of learning new words: you could also impact the way you perceive the world.